Hemlock

by Susan Wittig Albert

  The chief was regarding me intently. “Hear anything? See anything else?”

  I shook my head.

  “Did anyone see you?” Curtis asked. “Anyone who might have noticed when you came into the shop? Somebody on the street, maybe?”

  I didn’t have to be F. Lee Bailey to see where he was going with this, and I narrowed my eyes. He was thinking that I was a pretty good suspect, first on the scene, no other witnesses. Well, I wasn’t going to let him go very far down that road.

  “Nobody saw me,” I said. “But I would be glad to submit to a search. And a gunshot residue test, too, if that will make you feel better.” I held out my hands. “If you’re going to do that, please bag me.”

  Actually, I wouldn’t be glad to submit to GSR testing, and if the chief intended to do that I wasn’t climbing into a cop car without protection against contamination. Delicate gunshot residue particles can be transferred by contact, abrasion, even air movement. If I got into the back seat of a cop car or visited a police station, I could pick up residue and test positive. The FBI no longer conducts GSR tests for this reason (among others), but it is still a widely accepted evidence collection procedure. I figured it would be smart to anticipate a possible request.

  “Oh, yeah?” He arched one suspicious brown eyebrow. “You know about GSR?”

  “I do.” I looked him straight in the eye. “My husband is a former homicide detective. Retired.”

  No lie this time. Of course, I could also have said that as a criminal defense attorney (still true, because I pay my $235 annual dues to the State Bar of Texas) I had learned about the unreliability of the GSR test firsthand, so to speak. However, as an attorney, I was also the chief’s natural adversary. As the wife of a cop, even an ex-cop, we were colleagues, both on the same team. My statement, sub rosa, might also have conveyed a mild threat: Don’t mess with me, fella. I am a cop’s wife, and my cop looks out for me.

  “Oh, yeah?” Curtis visibly relaxed. “Where?”

  “Houston.” I pulled down my mouth. “His name is McQuaid. Mike McQuaid.” In case he took it into his head to check it out. “These days, he has his own PI firm—not in Houston.”

  The chief’s tone was friendly now, even sympathetic. “I’ve been thinking about doing something like that. Thing is, there’s not much business in a small town like this, only skip tracing, process service, stuff like that. I’d have to move over to Asheville or even—”

  He stopped and let it go, smiling slightly. “Don’t reckon we’ll need to do a search, Ms. Bayles. Or a GSR.” He glanced at the blood puddle on the floor. “Good thing for you that you didn’t get back here while the shooter was still on the scene. So the first you knew anything about this was when you stumbled over the victim?”

  I nodded. “I wouldn’t have come back here if I hadn’t heard him moan.”

  The chief was silently checking things out, looking around at the floor, the shelves, the door, back at me. He wasn’t missing much. “Did Conway say anything?” he asked. “Anything at all?”

  And there it was.

  I took a breath. I really, really hate lying to the cops. I had already done it once, not two minutes ago. But sometimes prevarication is required. And Conway’s voice had been so bubbly with blood and spittle that I couldn’t be absolutely sure of what I heard. The Herbal was on my mind, so it was entirely possible that I imagined it. Or that I’d made it up. Maybe he had said nothing at all. In which case, there was no sense in cluttering up the police investigation. Any investigator will tell you that no information is preferable to false information, which sends them down blind alleys and into dead-end searches.

  And so I found myself doing it again.

  “Nothing,” I lied earnestly. “Mr. Conway is lucky that your guys got here so fast. I’m not sure how much longer he could have held out.”

  “Yeah.” Curtis accepted my lie. “And lucky for him you came into the store when you did. He didn’t look any too good when the guys wheeled him out. But the hospital is only five, six minutes away. Maybe his luck will hold.” He reached for his cell phone. “Guess I oughta tell somebody to get in touch with his sister.”

  But instead of doing that, he glanced at me. “How long you fixin’ to stay up there at Hemlock House?”

  “Through the end of the week. I’m planning to talk to a couple of the Carswell foundation board members here in town. Carole Humphreys, for one.”

  His mouth tightened and he grunted.

  I waited a beat. When he didn’t explain, I went on. “And somebody else, Anderson, I think her name is. She used to work for Miss Carswell.”

  “Yeah. Margaret Anderson. Writes a literary column for the local paper. A blog, too.” He pursed his lips. “I s’pose you heard about the missing book?”

  I put on a blank expression. “Missing book?”

  Did he look relieved? “Never mind. Just some little problem they had at the Hemlock House recently.” He gave me a lopsided smile. “Before you head back up the mountain, I’d appreciate it if you’d stop in at the station and leave your statement. Okay? Won’t take but a few minutes.”

  “Glad to,” I said.

  The bell over the front door jangled again, and a male voice called “Yo, Chief? You here, Curtis?”

  Curtis raised his voice “In the back, Frazier.” He reached into his shirt pocket, fished out a card and handed it to me. “If you think of something I need to hear, you phone me. Day or night. Got that?”

  “Yes sir,” I said. “Got that.”

  It was nice to know we were on the same team. At least for now.

  Chapter Seven

  Down through the years the May apple (Podophyllum peltatum) has had many common names, including wild jalap, hog apple, ground lemon, Indian apple, [and] raccoon berry . . . The medicinal dosage of podophyllin is very small and overdoses can kill, so do not eat the roots or foliage of the May apple (just as you should never eat the sprouts of the potato). The Penobscot Indians used the crushed roots of the May apple as a poultice for the removal of warts and the Menominee tribe considered the stems and foliage of the plant to be a good pesticide. They boiled those parts of the May apple in water and then applied the cooled liquid to their potato patches to repel the insects that attacked them.

  Freddä Burton

  “The Mighty May Apple”

  Mother Earth News, July/August 1977

  As I hesitated on the sidewalk, I looked first to my right, toward the grocery store where I had seen the Hemlock House minivan. The parking space was empty.

  Then I looked to my left and saw Blue Ridge Crafts and Antiques Gallery, cattycornered across the street at the end of the block. A woman was standing in the open doorway, watching the gaggle of cop cars and officers in front of the bookstore. After a moment, she went inside, closing the door behind her.

  Carole Humphreys? I checked the time on my phone. Almost one o’clock, and she was expecting me. There was nothing more for me to do here, and no reason to follow the ambulance to the hospital. If Dorothea was driving the minivan, she had gone. Time to get on with it.

  Humphreys’ shop was located in an attractive old red brick rounded-corner building, with blue awnings over the display windows on either side of the blue double doors, one window featuring colorful quilts, the other handcrafted pottery and baskets. The sign on the door said closed, but I pushed and it opened.

  When I stepped inside, I saw that somebody—Carole, I supposed—had invested plenty of money and time and creative energy making the old place into an attractive mini-mall habitat for Appalachian artists, crafters, and collectors of antiques, vintage wearables, and bric-a-brac. The brick walls were hung with a patchwork montage of colorful quilts, handwoven rugs, and various kinds of wall art. The large floor space was divided into corridors of booths and mini-booths, each its own little independent shop, creatively arranged, decorated, and lit. Tr
aditional mountain music—a dulcimer playing the old hymn, “I’ll Fly Away”—filled the air, which was sweetened with the scent of lavender.

  The woman I had seen in the doorway was behind the counter, studying something on a shelf. She turned as she heard the door open. She was tall, with a graceful, willowy figure, her blond hair piled on top of her head in a messy do so that the curls came down around her ears and neck. She might have been forty, but she had a young face—and the air of a woman who knew who she was and felt good about it. She wore jeans, a green sweater, and a denim bib apron embroidered with “Blue Ridge Crafts & Antiques Gallery.”

  “I’m China Bayles,” I said. “You’re Carole Humphreys? We have an appointment at one.”

  As if I hadn’t spoken, she said, very fast, “You were at the bookstore. What’s going on over there? I heard the sirens and saw the chief’s car and the ambulance and the gurney coming out of the store, but I couldn’t see who was on it. Was it a customer?” Her voice thinned. “It wasn’t Jed, was it?”

  I paused. “Mr. Conway is a friend of yours?”

  “We’re in the Chamber together. We went to school together. We—” She looked away, then back again. “He’s not sick, is he? His sister said something about an ulcer . . .”

  “He was shot,” I said bluntly, and watched her eyes widen, her jaw go slack. “I’m the one who found him.”

  “Shot?” she whispered. “But who would shoot Jed? Why?” Her voice registered shock and disbelief. “I’ll bet it’s that business with those Hemlock people. I told him it wasn’t smart to do what he did. Kevin Maxwell—”

  She bit off the rest of her sentence. “Jed’s going to be okay, isn’t he?”

  Hemlock people? She must be talking about Dorothea and Jenna, but what “old business”? And who was Kevin Maxwell? But I could come back to those questions later. There was something more important.

  “I don’t know if he’ll be okay,” I said. I wasn’t going to make this easy or pretty. I had no idea whether Carole Humphreys had anything to do with what had happened to Conway, but I wanted to see her reaction to the news. “He was pretty close to dead when I found him. He was shot in the back.”

  “Shot in the—” she whispered, and her hand went to her mouth. Her consternation seemed genuine. “Oh, my lord, that’s so awful. His sister will be wild! Has anybody called Kaye?”

  “I think the chief was going to get somebody to call her. Is she a friend of yours?”

  “We’re all friends. Bethany is a small town. Everybody knows everything about everybody else.” She straightened her shoulders. “Even when we don’t want to.”

  Her last few words were tart, but I understood. Pecan Springs is a small town, too. Sometimes we know things about other people that we’d rather not—and vice versa. What did she know about Conway, I wondered. And what was the “business” with the people at Hemlock House? Did it have to do with books? With the Blackwell Herbal?

  Carole closed her eyes and clasped her hands together as if she were saying a silent prayer for her friend—or simply trying to get hold of herself. When she opened her eyes again, her voice sounded steadier.

  “I know that hospital. If I called there now, nobody would tell me anything. I’ll wait until we’re done.” She took a breath and made a stab at sounding normal. “You’re here because you want to talk to me about Miss Carswell and the foundation? For an article or something, I think you said.”

  “That’s right.” I reached for the notebook I’d stashed in my shoulder bag. “Is there somewhere we could talk? I know you want to see about your friend, so I promise not to take up too much of your time.”

  She came around the corner. “I was about to finish checking the vendor booths. We could talk while we walk, if you wouldn’t mind following me around.” When I agreed, she said, “But let me lock up the door. We’re supposed to be closed.” As she went to the door, she said, over her shoulder, “Does anybody know who shot Jed?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “It all happened before I got into the store. You might ask Chief Curtis, though. He looked to me like somebody who expects to get all the answers—fast.” I meant it as a compliment, but that isn’t how she took it.

  “Oh, him.” Her tone was suddenly chilly. “He wants all the answers, filled out and in triplicate, just so he can be better informed than anybody else.” She locked the door and rattled the knob to be sure. “I suppose I should tell you that the chief is my ex.”

  That gave some useful context to her acidic comment about everybody knowing everything about everybody else. Cop spouses—even ex-spouses—are hardwired to the community grapevine. It’s very difficult for a spouse not to know what a cop knows, which is not always a good thing. Believe me.

  “I understand,” I said. “I’m married to a cop. An ex-cop, that is.”

  “Poor you,” she said. She was smiling at me as if we had just joined hands to make a great discovery. “You know exactly what I mean.”

  And there we were. Sisters under the skin. Funny how that works. Why, even the temperature in the room seemed a bit warmer than it had a few minutes before.

  Carole started down an aisle with me at her heels, notebook in hand. After a moment, she paused in front of a booth called Glassworks, filled with stained glass art—wind chimes made of shaped fragments of colored glass, suncatchers to hang in a sunny window, lampshades that cast a colorful glow. There were several blown glass pieces, too. Bud vases, flowers, garden art.

  “Lovely work,” I said appreciatively.

  “Husband and wife,” Carole said, surveying it. “They have a studio just south of town. You should stop on your way back to Hemlock House.” She picked up a vase, examining it. “I just can’t get over what happened to Jed.” She put the vase back on the shelf, shaking her head. “Domestic violence, yes. Somebody getting liquored up and shooting off a few rounds, yes. Bethany is an old mountain town, and this is moonshine territory. Stuff happens. But somebody shooting Jed? At noon on a weekday, in his shop? It’s hard to get my mind around it.” She glanced at me. “I’m sorry that you had to be the one who found him. It must be hard for you, too.”

  “It is,” I said honestly, and opened my notebook, wanting to get to the reason for my visit. “About Miss Carswell. You knew her well?”

  She seemed to take my question seriously. “I knew her as a book collector,” she said, after a moment. “Other than that . . .” She let the sentence trail away. “I was surprised by her suicide, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been. She was a very independent woman. Used to having her own way. I guess I was more surprised by the way she did it. With that gun, I mean.”

  We moved on to another booth, this one full of artwork made from crocheted doilies. Vintage doilies framed for wall hangings. A doily draped over a dainty pink lampshade. Flowers made of doilies. Glass jars gaily clad in starched doilies. Paper doilies shaped into cones and stacked, so that they looked like lacy white trees. There was even a large crocheted doily rug in an arresting shade of apricot.

  One of the paper-doily cones had fallen on the floor, and Carole picked it up and put it back on the shelf. “Sunny was a hermit and proud of it,” she said without looking at me. “Who do you think is going to be interested in an article about her—especially now that she’s dead?”

  “Book collectors,” I replied, making it up. “Librarians, gardeners. Donors to her foundation. And of course, people in North Carolina.”

  Carole moved on and I followed. She paused at a booth called The Village Herb Shop, where the rustic wood shelves were filled with dried herbs in jars, packaged culinary herbs and blends, a small selection of fragrance oils, and an interesting display called Native Appalachian Herbs. It featured several photographs of the May apple, a plant that thrives in the cool, damp eastern forests. I’ll never find it growing around Pecan Springs. I’ve always wanted to know more about it.

  But
I didn’t want us to be distracted. “Did you know Sunny very well?” I asked.

  There was a silence. Being a sister under the skin apparently meant that Carole would give some serious thought to my questions—and maybe tell me more than she might have otherwise. But I wasn’t betting that I would learn anything very revealing. I was wrong.

  “Here’s the thing,” she said finally. “None of the Carswells—Sunny or her father or her grandfather—ever had much to do with Bethany. I mean, it was like our little town was beneath them, you know? Other wealthy people who live on the mountain usually show up for the Fourth of July fireworks or the August bluegrass weekends. They like to mingle with the masses. Act like they’re one of the local folks.”

  Her voice sharpened. “But not the Carswells. Joe drove Sunny over to Asheville to do her doctoring. Sunny sent Rose down here to do the grocery shopping. And she always made Jed go up to Hemlock House to do their book business. She rarely showed her face here in town.” At the mention of Jed, she winced but straightened her shoulders and went on with her story.

  “So that’s the way it was, you see. Folks down here know that she lived up there, but most have never seen her. Except for Jed and Margaret, of course, because of the books. That’s how the two of them were connected. And Amelia too, although that was different. It didn’t have anything to do with books.” A small frown creased her forehead. “You’ll definitely want to talk to Margaret.” There was an acerbic edge to her voice. “I’m sure she’ll want to talk to you.”

  “That would be Margaret Anderson?”

  “Right. She’s the one who took me up to Hemlock House for the first time.”

  “I’ve left a message for her.” I made a note. “When was that? When you first met Miss Carswell, I mean.”

  “Maybe two years ago.” Carole paused in front of a booth full of handwoven items, wall hangings, rugs, throws, shawls, a couple of vests. “Margaret said that Sunny had cancer and the doctors were telling her she didn’t have long to live. So she was trying to figure out what to do with that ginormous book collection of hers. Her lawyers were telling her that she ought to set up a foundation to manage the library and the house and the garden. They suggested that she ask a few local people to serve on the board, as well as some people she knew in Asheville and over in Raleigh. Margaret suggested my name and took me up there to meet her.” She laughed shortly. “That was before. When Margaret and I were still friends.”